


Pottery? Sure!

by poisns



Series: Klaus the Temporary Hobby Enthusiast [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Apocalypse, Gen, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, No Beta, One Shot, hobby enthusiast klaus, klaus doesn't know what he's doing so don't ask him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 15:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisns/pseuds/poisns
Summary: Klaus buys a pottery wheel. Just because he enjoys it doesn't mean he's good at it.





	Pottery? Sure!

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello. i decided that i wanted to write this scenario that's mentioned in the previous part of this series. oh yeah, and i've decided to make it a series since i got an overwhelming amount of positive comments. so if you were one of the ones who left a comment or a kudos, thank you!
> 
> speaking of comments, you know what to do. they are very much welcome, as well as a lil' kudos.
> 
> rated teen and up for swear words. oh no. this one has ben since i deprived everyone in the last one.
> 
> ***i edited the bit where i made a bit of a booboo where it seemed like allison overlooked vanya's existence. thank you user @CatherineParr for pointing it out.***
> 
> enjoy!

To say that Klaus was regularly bored was one of the biggest understatements of the century. As it was known, he was constantly functioning at the highest possible level, meaning the little red light inside of him that represented his energy levels never _ever_ faltered.

Since he had such a large volume of energy trapped inside of his body, it was essential that he took up something that kept either his brain, hands or legs busy at for hours upon hours upon hours.

He had taken up copious amounts of hobbies over the past year (since Ye Ole Apocolypse scare, he had thought _‘why the hell am I just sitting here smoking pot when I could be doing something well worth my time?’_ ) and so far, hadn’t managed to succeed in half of them. Allison had suggested speed-walking as a way to release the steam that he wasn’t blowing off from sitting around the house all day. Now, speedwalking… it wasn’t easy _whatsoever_. He had spent an entire two minutes trying to get his legs to move as fast as the group of grannies that passed the Academy every Sunday morning, but he ended up looking like he had crapped in his pants and was desperately trying to seek out a bathroom.

So speedwalking was a no-go.

Felting hardly worked either. The patience and time it took to make a shape that resembled anything other than a sad lump of fluff was beyond tedious, and it just so happened that Klaus didn’t have either of those things. Maybe he had the time, but spending six hours just sheerly abusing the felt with the needle didn’t warrant a single thing. Another factor that put him off completely was the state of his fingers afterwards; never had he felt such pain in those parts of his body before, and never would he ever feel that pain again, because felting was off the table indefinitely.

It didn’t leave him with much, really.

Well, it _did_ , but half of the stuff he had thought up seemed totally impractical and unachievable. Surfing? He lived in the city. Archery? None of his siblings would allow him near a bow and arrow. Plumbing? The same went for wielding a wrench; prohibited.

So, pottery it was.

It was one-hundred-per cent a rash decision when he spotted the ancient looking pottery wheel in a nearby thrift store. He had almost sprinted out of the store with the thing in his arms all the way to source some clay. Once he did, he used his infamous stash of energy to run back to the Academy to use his find.

Luckily, _oh so luckily,_ the vast majority of his siblings weren’t even home. Five and Allison had gone to a flea market downtown and had predicted that they’d be back by four in the afternoon - meaning he had three hours before they returned. Luther had taken Vanya to her rehearsals and had made the decision to wait in the minivan until she had finished (God only knew why, but a tiny, feeble voice inside Klaus’ head told him that it was probably because the giant of a man didn’t want to be left alone in the house with him).

Diego was pottering about the house, but he never really paid any mind to Klaus’ spontaneous activity sessions unless he could be directly involved. It then left Ben, but he couldn’t really go anywhere, so Klaus didn’t count him. _Speaking of Ben,_ his brother was following him like a lamb all whilst giving him the blankest deadpan as Klaus whizzed around the kitchen like a tornado to gather all of his supplies.

“So, Ben, tell me,” Klaus started, balancing three mugs of water in his arms along with a wad of kitchen towel and a bag of clay, “do you think that this will finally be the time I find my true calling?”

“I thought your true calling was to be one of those fancy rich ballet dancers?”

“Oh, don’t you remember? I twisted my ankle trying to get into the fifth position.” Klaus frowned and let the paper towel drop to the floor so he could set down the mugs of water without spillages.

“Ha, yes. You nearly put a you-sized hole in the hardwood floor from how hard you fell.”

Klaus retrieved the paper towel and fell backwards onto the sofa, his head flopping back between the crack in the cushions. “That me-sized hole would have been a breeze to fix,” he said, “I wouldn’t say I’m too bad at the art of carpentry. You know, cutting wood and all.”

Ben made a face, “Well, I would. Plus, that isn’t carpentry.”

“Whatever,” Klaus waved his hand in Ben’s direction, earning a scoff, “pottery time. Don’t suppose you know how to use this thing?”

Ben rolled his eyes, “All the more reason for you to _not_ to use it.”

Klaus didn’t reply. He huffed and picked the power cord up from where it was laid tangled on the ground, and groaned in irritation when the wire kept tangling against the pedal. “Fuck. This,” he scrunched up his face and pouted like a small child as he let his hands still grasping the cord drop to his thighs.

Ben snorted from behind him.

“That’s true Klaus fashion, right there. Trying to combat something of a mild difficulty for no more than five seconds before whinging and swearing.”

“Oh, will you shut the f- up? I’ll find out a way to banish you sooner or later…” Klaus ripped and tugged at the cord, and the plug flopped off of the couch as he forcefully untangled the last snag. “See? Done it. It took perseverance and a strong will, but it happened.” He dabbed at his already-wet brow with the paper towel rather dramatically, and Ben felt his eyes automatically rolling for the hundredth time since Klaus had stumbled through the door.

“I feel obliged to stay here for supervision. You may be nearly thirty-one but that doesn’t mean I feel right leaving you alone when you start doing wacky shit.”

Klaus appeared unphased by the dig directed towards him and began untying the bag of clay. “Do what you want, Banjo, soon enough I’m going to be stood in the markets downtown with my own little stall selling my world-renowned pieces.”

“Yeah, right.

Something like ten minutes had passed, and Klaus had finished fiddling aimlessly with his tools and had started to actually use the wheel. Now, he was by no means experienced with the pedal placed on the floor next to his foot, but he had told himself ample times that it couldn’t be much different from sewing on a machine - the one activity that caused nearly as much uproar as the felting due to sharp objects coming into contact with fingers (Diego had fainted, and Klaus laughed and cried simultaneously from the pain, as well as the sight of his unconscious brother spread across the floor).

The clay was perhaps _too_ wet, but there wasn’t a single instruction manual that Klaus had read (meaning _hadn’t read_ ) which specified the overall wetness of the clay. So, he opted to dig his fingers into the middle of the clay until a well had formed, take the mug and pour the water into said well until it reached the top. He then took it upon himself to fold the lips of the well onto each other, trapping the water inside like a pocket.

Ben had outwardly cringed the entire time that Klaus was, to put it lightly, _fucking it up_ , but didn’t say a word just so he could see what would happen without commenting on every little thing his brother did.

And _boy,_ was that a terrible decision for Ben to have made on his part.

The water that Klaus had thought was constricted to only the centre of the glob of clay had started to seep out seconds ago, and the moment that he pressed down on the pedal, the water flicked upwards, and out of instinct to shield his face, he knocked the blob sideways with the back of his hand, and it landed with a _thump_ onto the ground.

“Oh Lord, that was really scary,” Klaus muttered, uncovering his eyes which darted around for a few seconds before spotting the clay. It was slightly flattened from the impact, but still useable, so he peeled it off of the hardwood and slapped it back onto the wheel, “first times are always sloppy, right, Ben?”

“Only you would know.”

“Ha, yeah…”

Wasting no time, Klaus didn’t even bother to shape the clay back into the ball form that it needed to be, and he pressed on the pedal a lot softer than he had before, and it started spinning around slowly.

“Oh, look! It isn’t flying away,” he dipped his hands in water and immediately placed them either side of the blob. Just like he imagined, it started changing and reforming before him, and he beamed at the successful - but feeble - attempt at art before him, “isn’t this just wonderful?”

As if Ben’s presence wasn’t enough, Klaus’ eyes widened as he felt other pairs of eyes staring at the side of his face from the archway to the foyer. Not removing his hands from the soggy clay ball, he turned his head to be greeted with the confused (and exasperated) expressions of Allison and Five.

His smaller brother was wearing his signature distressed-yet-angry-yet-perplexed expression, and his eyebrows appeared furrowed and raised at the same time. _Only baby Five could show so many emotions simultaneously_ , he thought.

The act of his siblings walking in on him doing something so Klaus-like was frequent, and each time, they lacked in something to say each time. Of course, it had to do with shock factor wearing off over and over again, but also, seeing Klaus stood in the middle of the kitchen with a black peel off face mask covering the entirety of his upper half had just about been the peak, and they stopped thinking of a reaction to give.

Instead, they tended to ignore it completely and move on.

Five never could, though, Klaus had found.

“The living room? Why?!” Five strained, his face turning completely red. Klaus retained a full-on bark of laughter at the sight of someone so little becoming so stressed. Instead of saying anything to gage a particular reaction, he merely shrugged and pouted his lips, turning back to face the mess he hadn’t realised he had created.

He acted nonchalant about it, however, and continued poking his fingers into the clay as it spun.

A few moments passed where only the sound of the wheel spinning and wet squelches were heard. Allison sighed.

“All right, I’m going to help Mom with dinner. Don’t make too much mess, Klaus, yeah?” She said, passing behind Klaus and patting him on the head.

Klaus nodded and looked up at her. “Oh, of course, Mother Allison. Anything for my favourite sister.”

“I'm not your only sister.” She corrected him now from the other side of the room.

“What the heck is it with everyone correcting me today? I’m starting to think that I’m not always right…” he mumbled, specks of grey water dotting across his face, shirt, arms and the entirety of the sofa cushions. His eyes darted to Five who was stood in the corner of his line of vision, and the corners of his mouth curled up into a cheeky smirk.

Five said nothing, and instead just puffed out his cheek and let the air out through pursed lips.

Like always.

“Is it finished? It looks finished,” Ben piped up from the bookcase at the back of the living room, “surely you can’t not be finished.”

“No, no, I think I am, give me a sec, jeez. You can’t rush this shit, Ben.”

“Sorry I asked,” his brother said, focusing on choosing a book to think about reading from the shelf.

Klaus’ creation was a bit crap, to say the least. It had caved in slightly on one side where he had pressed on it a little too much, and it was too wide and too short. _It looks severely overweight,_ he thought, but grinned at the accomplishment anyway and smoothed the rigid edges of the mouth.

“Hey, Ben, here,” he slipped his fingers underneath the pot (if one could call it a pot) and held it up at full arm's length to show Ben, who’s eyes were comically wide, and his head had tilted to the side.

“Wow, that’s… wow, Klaus. It looks… overweight.”

“Oh my _God,_ that’s _exactly_ what I just thought!” Klaus laughed and shook his head, “I could have been a little less liberal on the flattening, but this baby turned out pretty damn good, don’t you think? I mean, I had like, three other failed attempts, and I shan't mention those, but this one? It’s hot.”

Ben smiled and nodded slowly, “Yeah Klaus. It’s great,” he wavered, “maybe not hot, but it’s definitely good. I hope you’re gonna paint it.”

“Trust me, I’m gonna put little flowers on it. Or cocks, whichever I prefer when the time comes.”

“Probably the dicks, then.”

“Yeah. probably.” Klaus mumbled, grinning in satisfaction at the lumpy, uneven, fat piece of slimy wet pottery in his hands.

After Klaus had cleaned up the mess he had made - well, ‘cleaned up’ was cutting a bit fine, he had left droplets of clay water dotted along everything that was a meter within where he was sat, and he was fairly certain that he had left out a blob or two of clay out of the bag but had no clue where - he had handed his creation to Grace so she could store it somewhere to dry. She decided to put it under the kitchen sink, and to deter anyone who might’ve been interested in removing it, she hung a handwritten sign from the knob which read: ‘Do NOT Open. Love, Mom.’ Everyone was more likely to listen to Grace, anyway.

Klaus was horribly impatient, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to see him sat on the floor with his head and arm stuck inside the cabinet, hesitantly poking the pot to see if it had dried any more than the few previous times he had checked.

It took five days due to how ridiculously thick it was, but when he grabbed it and gently set it onto the table like a newborn child, he clasped his hands together and pouted in sheer delight.

“Isn’t she just beautiful?” Klaus said, wiping away a fake tear with his index finger. Luther, Diego and Vanya were sat at the table, mugs of steaming drinks in their hands. Luther blinked slowly and looked at Klaus, unimpressed, and heaved a sigh.

“I still can’t understand why you left an entire bag of it for me to sit in.”

“I didn’t leave it for you specifically, Numero Uno, you just happen to be such a massive oaf that even your ass cheeks can destroy anything in their paths.” Klaus threw the truth bomb, and Diego snorted. Vanya’s lip twitched and she immediately ducked her head and shielded face with her hand. Luther frowned as Luther always did, but Klaus mouth formed into a shit-eating grin.

“Heh. Anyway, give me your verdicts!” He threw his arms forward, palms up, waiting for his siblings to speak with his mouth wide open.

Vanya was the first to speak.

“I mean, considering you’ve never tried pottery before, it’s a really good attempt, Klaus. I couldn’t make my first as good as that.” He couldn’t decide on whether he doubted her comment or not but by the way her kind brown eyes flicked between him and his creation, he couldn’t help but let his heart do a little jump in his chest.

“What she said,” Deigo said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder to his sister, “if you kept trying, which I know you won’t, you could be really good, man.”

“Hey, hey now, who said I won’t keep trying? That demonic thing was _sixty dollars_ , alright? You’d be an insane man to assume I wouldn’t use the _shit_ out of it.” Klaus said, a little too enthusiastically.

Diego was right, _obviously._

Twenty four hours after they sat at the dinner table, Klaus had spent an entire day making a ‘vase’ for absolutely no reason at all other than to prove his brother wrong. The said vase was so immensely tall and thin that it kept flopping over like an inflatable-waving-tube-man that were usually outside of car dealerships.

He had gotten too frustrated with it, took it by one of the ends and swung it round like he was taking part in a hammer throw event. Each of the ends splatted against the wall, and Klaus made a face of revulsion. Ben had been watching with sheer amusement as he located the remains of the vase.

Klaus sighed airily.

“Yeah, pottery isn’t my thing. Ooh, what about dog grooming?”

“NO.”

**Author's Note:**

> this one was particularly fun because of how much klaus fucks about. the poking and prodding and smushing and smearing is something i can picture so clearly in my head since i literally do it myself. making a mess is wildly satisfying. anyway, thank you for reading, and i really do hope you liked it.
> 
> oh, and i do have a little list of hobbies/scenarios, both thought of by me and you lovely lot who commented on the last one, but don't let that stop you from giving me more suggestions. keep your eyes peeled for some new stuff in the next few weeks (or less, who knows;) ).


End file.
